


In Reach

by greygerbil



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gentle Sex, Hair Washing, M/M, Mpreg, Pregnant Sex, pregnant Davos Seaworth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-11-24 21:30:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18170105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Stannis knows that Davos will do all that is asked of him and well and thus does not hesitate to send him away from court if he thinks it has to be done, even now that his husband is pregnant. However, the long separation between them that Davos' latest task necessitated was harder on Stannis than he expected.





	In Reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



> Happy Smut Swap! I love this pairing and I hope you'll like this fic.

“Ser Davos has returned, my lord. He is waiting in your chambers.”

Standing before the door of the room in which the small council had met, Stannis gave the servant a curt nod. It was all that needed to be shown to him, even though Stannis knew it would just strengthen the impression others had of him as too hard for this marriage, any marriage, whispers he’d heard behind his back wherever he went. Let them talk; it was better than to be considered a letch like Robert. If there was to be an acknowledgement of the quick stumble his heart had given at the news, the nervous flutter of his stomach, they were only for Stannis’ own mind. He chided himself for such childishness, but at the same time enjoyed this nervous excitement just a little too much to squash it whole. As long as no one knew it wouldn’t hurt. It was, after all, natural one should feel affection for one’s husband, as long as one did not conduct oneself like a lovestruck boy because of it.

Were only all as quiet as him.

“You must’ve been waiting for this,” Robert said with a grin as he drew up beside Stannis.

“He was gone for three months. We have been separated longer,” Stannis answered matter-of-factly.

“That was before you finally decided to take his hand, and your right to fuck him,” Robert said with a shrug. “Though we all know he’d have spread his legs for you without the Baratheon mantle around his shoulders. I still can’t believe you insisted on marrying the smuggler...”

The bristling, wordless anger at Robert reducing his relationship to his husband to such crude words prevented Stannis from interrupting Robert’s stream of thought.

“Anyway, I figured once Ser Davos had finally taken care of your maidenhood, you’d get a taste for it. But once your man is sailing, you sit alone again.”

“My husband was in Dorne, not dead,” Stannis groused.

Robert rolled his eyes. “Up to your chambers, then,” he said. “Let’s hope he was as faithful as you. Dorne has busty raven-haired women and strong, sun-kissed men, and I hear pregnancy makes some barely able to keep their breeches on.”

Stannis ground his teeth and swallowed an answer. There was no need to let this bother him; Davos was as loyal as any lord could wish a knight to be, why would he be any less so as a husband? Still, he had perhaps underestimated how hard it was to send Davos away at four months pregnant – not knowing how he was, not watching over him and their unborn child, which had been gifted to them with some help by the ancient spells passed down from the time of the old gods. He still scoffed at those who had said Davos could not do his duties in his state. That remained still the least of his worries. He’d chosen him because he was a reliable messenger and better informant, as people tended to forget about his presence more than that of a man they thought they had to pay attention to. But what if Davos had felt neglected by him, missing him as much as Stannis had missed him? He was a reasonable man, but Stannis knew he was not always good at guessing Davos’ deeper feelings. Unlike Stannis, Davos had not gone into marriage innocent of the touch of other people. Perhaps someone more agreeable had come a long, better at lending an ear and a shoulder to lean on, distracting him from his loneliness...

Angrily, Stannis shook his head. It was beneath him to suspect Davos of such things with no proof but Robert’s jeering. He was letting Robert get to him again, just as he had when they were children. Resolutely, he struck him from his mind for now as he marched towards his quarters.

His bed and the chairs at the table stood untouched, but Stannis heard a noise from the adjacent bathing chamber, the quiet splash of moving water. He opened the door to find Davos in a steaming hot bath, naked, hair long enough to guess he hadn’t cut it since leaving spilling over shoulders burnt tan by the sun. Stannis’ eyes only lingered briefly on those changes, though; more prominent was his middle.

When Davos had left, his stomach had been a soft curve, almost too small for the months he had carried the babe, though the maesters said it was because the child laid a certain way across his stomach, not because it was stunted. The truth of that could be seen now. With how big Davos was, one could have believed he was ready to deliver the child this night.

Stannis stood there contemplating his lover for long enough that Davos finally raised his eyes from the water and caught sight of him. He tensed for just one reflexive moment at finding he was not alone before an honest smile spread all over his face.

“My lord,” he said, grasping on to the sides of the round wooden tub to push himself up.

Stannis bid him sit with a gesture of his as he walked over, his heartbeat too fast, just seconds now from touching his husband after all this time.

“I hope I find you well?” Davos asked, following him with his gaze, his soft brown eyes full of warmth.

“Yes. And you?”

“Fine. Just a little slower now, you’ll see,” he answered with a smile.

Stannis reached his hand down and Davos took it with his own and pulled it close to kiss the back of it, leaning his cheek against it. Preposterous to guess he had given him horns, Stannis thought to himself, as he watched him. He tightened his fingers around Davos’.

“I imagine. It looks like you are about to bear me two heirs.”

“Gods, I hope not, that would be much for a first attempt. I think it’s just your blood, my lord. You and your brothers are all big, tall men. It seems our babe takes after your family.”

It worried Stannis a little to think of such a child growing in his husband, who was short and rather slight in build, especially with his narrow hips. Enough people died trying to bring a child into the world. But Davos had taken to pregnancy so well, he just had to hope he would be as lucky for the birth.

“I just need to wash my hair, my lord, then I can join you.”

“Let me.”

It was an order more than the request he had planned, his voice still not as used to forming gentle words as he sometimes wished. Davos did not seem to care, except for the quirk to the corner of his lips. 

“Sometimes I feel like you would have preferred a man with Jaime Lannister’s beautiful locks,” Davos joked.

It always seemed to amuse him that Stannis liked toying with his hair so much, but he indulged him all the same, keeping it longer than he used to. Stannis had not washed it before like he planned to now, but he would run his fingers over it, through it; at times, in the privacy of the drawn curtains around their bed, he had pulled it firmly, just hard enough to make Davos gasp. He had never realised that this could be one of the many minor fixations he would develop with Davos’ body.

“If it comes attached to a man like Jaime Lannister, no amount of hair could be worth the trouble,” Stannis muttered, waiting for Davos to move forward in the tub and put his head under water while he grabbed the uneven, already slippery bar of lye soap that laid next to it.

Davos chuckled while putting the back of his head under. He pulled himself up again by the sides of the tub with some considerable effort. Stannis helped, pushing him by the shoulders before he touched the wet strands of dun hair, collecting them in his hands to apply the slippery bar of soap. No, he didn’t think he would have liked his hair better were it the kind that drew special attention from others, like the golden curls of the Lannister twins. He mostly enjoyed it for the way it fell over Davos’ strong shoulders, framed the familiar shape of his face, how Davos himself would brush it out of the way with a quick flick, the way he smiled at Stannis when Stannis combed his fingers through it. The colour or volume of it mattered very little.

Spreading the foaming smears of soap, he found himself roughly massaging it into his scalp, and Davos sank back against the tub with a content sigh. Stannis made sure to spend a little bit more time on this part than strictly necessary.

A smaller bucket of clear water stood by the side of the tub. Stannis cleaned his hands in it.

“This will be cold,” he warned Davos as he stood.

Davos braced himself, head ducked between his shoulders, and gave only a quiet hiss when Stannis poured the water from the bucket over his head. With his shortened hand, he wiped off his face before he hauled himself to his feet, or tried to. His own weight seemed to pull him forward unexpectedly, and he almost slipped, if not for Stannis grabbing on to his arm.

“Careful,” he admonished.

“Apologies, my lord. My balance isn’t what it used to be.”

“A wonder you didn’t fall off your boat.”

Davos shook his head. “That gave me no trouble. If anything, it was easier. The shifting deck under my feet is well-known to me, so I have to watch my step, anyway. It’s the land that’s treacherous.”

Davos closed in on him. Usually, he would rise to his toes to place a kiss on Stannis’ lips if Stannis did not bow his head for him; they seemed to realise at the same moment that the size of Davos’ belly didn’t quite allow him to close the distance anymore. Davos snorted, amused.

“You are getting my clothes wet,” Stannis murmured, running his hand up Davos’ arm.

Davos dawdled a moment before stepping back.

“You won’t be needing your clothes, my lord,” he said with a smart smile as he grabbed the clean linen towel and quickly dragged it across his skin.

Stannis swallowed. As usual, Davos moved naked with an easy certainty that had always been entirely foreign to Stannis himself. There was no arrogance in it, not even really seduction. Stannis’ eyes on him seemed to please him, but he wasn’t able to employ enough playful artifice to be coy. He just did as he always did but without a shred of fabric on him and it messed with Stannis’ instincts well enough.

When Davos had dried himself, he took hold of Stannis’ hand with his own, the shortened one. He did not often touch others with it without need. It didn’t grip as well as the right one, missing knuckles, but Stannis figured the real reason was that people usually found it felt strange, as Davos had told him. Stannis didn’t mind it. To him, it was a reminder of the justice Davos had willingly accepted of him.

Davos led the way to the bed, as he so often did. He was usually the one gently pushing, coaxing, deciding what they would do and how, for Stannis still found himself somewhat awkward and embarrassed even after months with his husband. Davos had more experience and more daring. When Davos had started to grow visibly pregnant, Stannis had voiced that perhaps they should wait until after the child was born to share the bed again, as to not put strain on Davos’ body. In response, Davos had dragged Stannis down on his bed and directed him on his hands and knees. Stannis would never admit to it, or even understand why, but feeling the shallow curve of Davos’ stomach against his backside when Davos took him had turned his blood to liquid fire. It had, at that, stifled all thought of stopping their usual nightly activities.

But Davos sat heavy on the bed now and Stannis could see he was happy to take weight off his legs. He turned his shoulders to twist his back, cracked his neck, looking exhausted, unfocused. For as much as Davos had always assured him the pregnancy did not affect him much, it had progressed far while they were separated and Stannis could not imagine sending him away again now for anything but the greatest necessity, he realised.

“We need not go to bed tonight if you are tired,” he said, although uncharacteristically for him, he had thought of it while alone. Perhaps Robert was right in that – Davos had gotten him used to some manner of pleasurable distraction.

“It’s nothing. I’ve just been on my feet all day, most of last night, too. We had a bit of storm to navigate before the harbour. But I’ll live, and, my lord husband, if you send me away to sleep in my own bed now, after we were separated for so long, I’m going to be unhappy,” Davos threatened, with a small laugh.

“You can stay in my bed to sleep. You don’t need to please me for that.”

Davos’ smile softened a little. “I wish to. It has been quite hard on me waiting, in truth. Apparently, my body only wants you more now that you’ve staked your claim.”

Stannis huffed, though the way Davos put it was so much better to hear than Robert’s words, which painted desire without any trace of tenderness.

“My brother said something like that. That you’d be finding yourself in Dornish beds trying to quell the urge.”

“Forgive me, but apparently His Grace thinks everyone would do as he does,” Davos answered with a shrug.

Though such insolence towards the king should have been shut down, Stannis only gave a wry, humourless grin. He said the truth, his smuggler, did he not? How could he punish him for that?

“I know you wouldn’t,” Stannis assured him. Still, it was good to hear it. He supposed he was that much of a fool in love that even an idiotic thought set some flame of jealousy burning.

“I’m glad.” Davos cocked his head. “But what about your clothes now, my lord? Since I had no taste for the Dornish, I was hoping for my husband.”

Stannis stripped them as requested, quickly, efficiently, aware of Davos’ steady gaze on him as he did so, and feeling heat creeping up his neck. When he was finished, he stepped up to the bed, but Davos held him away at arm’s length and stood with a little intake of breath.

His mouth wandered slowly from Stannis’ throat over his chest, kissing the skin he passed softly, without hurry. His fingers brushed through the thick black hair on Stannis’ chest, then pressed down a little harder to feel the trained muscle they covered. Before Davos, Stannis had never seen much in his body but an instrument. Lust was a curious thing, though – touching the ones it touched in turn, waking a new awareness of himself, an idea of how Davos must see him.

He was so lost in the luxury of his long-missed touches that he barely noticed the trajectory of them, just taking them for what they were. However, when Davos knelt with an exhale to kiss his navel, Stannis woke as if from a spell. Gods, would he be greeted with his mouth? But Davos stopped, looking up at him with a smile that carried a hint of mischief and reached up his good hand.

“Could you wet my fingers for me?”

Both of Davos’ hands were beautiful. The fingers were long – as long as they still could be, on the left – and deft and rough from work and when he sucked them into his mouth, it always brought colour to Davos’ face, as it did now. He liked how they wriggled slightly against his tongue, ticklish and teasing, and how they would drag past his bottom lip again when Davos pulled them out.

“Thank you,” Davos said, simply, as he lowered his head.

Stannis’ length was already fully hard. After such a time apart, even just the sight of Davos naked would have been enough, not to mention this treatment. Davos wrapped his mouth around the head, eyes fluttering shut. The bolt that went through Stannis was so strong he only belatedly noticed that Davos had reached to his back, preparing himself with the two wet fingers.

“You are starting fast,” he murmured, his voice was hollow with breathlessness.

“Well, I said I shared no strangers’ beds, not that I didn’t think of my husband...”

Stannis found a low sound escape him, surprising himself, as he thought of Davos pleasing himself, desperate for Stannis’ touch instead. He spoke so simply, yet the words cut through to Stannis’ core.

Davos sucked him in, keeping the bobbing of his head low and shallow, tantalisingly on the edge of something more, which Stannis knew he would find when Davos welcomed him into his body. If his will had not been so strong, he would have pushed him away and asked, perhaps begged, for Davos to hurry on; but he wanted to allow Davos to set their pace, prepare himself as much as he needed.

When Davos pulled off, he grabbed on to the side of the bed, helping himself up. Stannis took his elbow to assist him as he sat by his side, disappointed at the loss, yet relieved at the same time.

“This might be a bit difficult,” Davos murmured, scanning Stannis like he might have a rocky, spire-studded bay, planning his approach.

It was true. Stannis wouldn’t have been comfortable taking him on all fours – what if they lost their balance and fell forward, onto his stomach? And with Davos on his back, they might end up putting pressure on his belly when Davos had to raise his legs. Certainly Davos could not take Stannis right now, he was much too big for that, with his own straining cock touching the round expanse of his belly. Stannis couldn’t take him in his lap, either, for Davos’ stomach would have forced a wrong angle.

“It’s best you let me ride, my lord,” Davos interrupted his thoughts. He seemed to have had similar ones.

He laid back as Davos climbed over him. However, Stannis saw the small tremor in his thighs as he spread them, plainly struggling to hold the position. He’d admitted he was tired, and the frown on his face spoke of it as he shifted, reaching one hand behind again to grab his own neck and knead it once, muscles tense, back bent oddly to the side, seemingly to avoid some ache.

No, this wouldn’t do, Stannis decided. Since he was usually happy to be led by Davos, for he always brought them both to amazing peaks, he had not yet quite learned to take control if it was not given; but it was clear that in his effort to please him, Davos was pushing himself somewhere uncomfortable. There had to be a different way to do this.

After a moment’s thought, Stannis grabbed him gently by the hips and plucked Davos off of him. Heavy as he might feel himself, the few added pounds of weight hardly turned Davos into a man Stannis had trouble lifting. He made a noise of surprise as Stannis put him down on the bed, laying him out on his back.

“Sire?”

“Let me.”

“Well, I – as you wish.”

There was a sudden flush on Davos’ face. It surprised Stannis, but only for a moment. Stannis found Davos quite alluring when he came at him with confidence, too. Perhaps Davos liked it the same. The thought made him almost shudder as he considered the possibilities. Gods, there were so many things he wanted to try with Davos. If he could have spent a year in bed with him, it would not be enough to discover it all.

Stannis rolled Davos onto his side.

“Is this good?”

“Yes, but I cannot do much for you like this, my lord. I can’t reach you well.”

Stannis wondered if it was why Davos had discarded the position in his own musings.

“Never mind that.”

He put his mouth against the back of Davos’ neck, which was damp from his wet hair, and slid his arm around him. After a moment of Stannis’ kisses, Davos’ relaxed his shoulders, and moment by moment, the tension vanished from his body at the drag of Stannis’ fingertips down his side, over his stomach, his hips.

“My apologies,” Davos murmured. “I had hoped to be more exciting after all this time.”

Stannis only snorted. “You are back,” he said, simply, hoping that Davos understood his meaning. That nothing else was needed.

Davos smiled, nestling against him.

After briefly twisting his arm behind himself to find the vial of oil he kept in the corner of the bed under the straw and dripping some over his fingers to slick his own manhood, Stannis raised Davos’ thigh. It gave him just enough access to rock into him. The angle was not suited to go fast and hard, but as he slid in inch by inch, Davos let out a shuddering breath that seemed to make his whole body shiver with it.

One of his arms was trapped under Davos’ head, the other holding up his thigh, his chest pressed tight against Davos’ back. A dim warmth was thrumming through him as he began thrusting into him. He had a feeling he would not last long, but also that it did not matter. Davos made those low little huffs that Stannis kept hearing in his head when he held himself in hand, but in reality they sounded so much better.

Davos didn’t say anything as Stannis short, shallow thrusts pushed into him, chasing their shared pleasure, but his hand covered Stannis’ on his leg and he turned his head to kiss the wrist of the arm his head laid on. It was as loud an admission to having needed his touch as any, and when Stannis briefly dropped his leg to grab Davos’ cock and give it a couple of strokes, Davos came, all tight muscles around him, beautifully, painfully tense, and Stannis buried himself in him as deep as he could, spilling himself inside.

They caught their breath together. Stannis let Davos’ leg sink back down and rested the hand on his hip to pull back.

“No, not yet,” Davos said, and his pleading tone gave Stannis practically no option but to obey.

He stilled. They had not laid like this before, connected when they were done with the act, and it made Stannis’ heart swell. He petted Davos’ thigh, traced the line of his hipbone, which was almost lost in the roundness of his belly, and spread his fingers out over his stomach.

“You haven’t asked me a thing about Dorne yet,” Davos said, amused, placing his hand over Stannis’ broader one. “Usually I report first.”

“Unless it’s about to sink into the sea, Dorne can wait until the morning.” He rubbed his thumb across his belly. “And everything else can wait until we have our child. I will keep you here for now.”

“I’m yours to command, my lord, but I would not complain if you did so.” Davos smiled, looking over his shoulder. “You know, I did meet a healer woman in Dorne – one of Lord Oberyn’s daughters kept her around. She says she knows it’ll be a girl. Saw it in the clouds, apparently. I told her I’d hope for a storm to blow through the skies, then, since my lord husband will want a boy.”

Stannis hummed against his skin, thinking of Davos with a little girl in his embrace, her chubby arms wrapped around his neck. “We could have more children,” he murmured. He knew he should have agreed with Davos, that it was the expected thing for a lord to be concerned with the continuation of his bloodline through a male heir, but it seemed so unimportant right now. “I don’t rightly care. Do you?”

“No. I never thought I’d own anything to pass on to any child of mine, so all I wanted was healthy ones. I told myself I would teach them all to sail, though, the girls and the boys.” He chuckled. “I suppose ladies at court aren’t really supposed to know, though?”

“It is often the women who could benefit from knowing how to slip away unseen into the night when a keep or city is under attack. I say you teach them all. And if a suitor complains about the calluses on their hands, we know they are too soft to protect our daughters.” He pulled Davos closer. “Perhaps our children won’t need anyone to come saving them as they sit locked up in their castles...”

“You’re right, my lord. But then again, it ended well enough for you, did it not?”

Stannis leaned up and kissed Davos’ smiling mouth.


End file.
